Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen

Back in January 2014, I had a glimpse of a prequel short-story, Waking Kate, that Ms Allen had put up for fan of hers. It was enjoyable to get a feel of her upcoming Lost Lake and I was so excited that I grabbed this book days after its launch.

Lost Lake tells us the story after Kate's husband had passed away and how she decided to visit Lost Lake, a place where she held her childhood memories, to get away from her mother-in-law. In this place, she met up with her Aunt Eby and a boy, Wes,  who she almost lost her first kiss to. The sparks between them flew almost immediately after reuniting with each other. When Kate realised that Aunt Eby was going to give up Lost Lake to Wes's uncle as she could no longer upkeep this place and was hoping to return to Paris to relief her memory of her dead husband, Kate decided that she wanted to save this place. For herself and for her daughter, Devin. However, her mother-in-law had better ideas of how she wanted to make us of Kate for own her political benefits so things are definitely not going as smoothly as Kate hoped.

With her aggressive mother-in-law, a man she loved but with a dark secret and her daughter who kept talking about a mysterious alligator, how was she going to save Lost Lake and bring it back to how it was to be when she had first visited.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and it was a pretty good read but I was very disappointed in it. Unlike other books by Ms Allen, the magical feel is just not in this book. Ghost and Alligator does't impress me nor spoke out to me. I had a hard time trying to blend the alligator into the story. What's worse was just days after finishing this book, I almost couldn't remember the characters in it.

For a book that was listed under the magical realism genre, this book definitely did not contains any magic in it. As I knew that Ms Allen is in remission of her cancer and this is her first release since her illness, I am hoping that this is just a book to get her back into writing. Although I have to say that this is my least favourite of her book (Oh yes, I have read every single book of hers and I loved almost everyone of them), I am still looking forward to her future work.

A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux (Montgomery Series)

Well it has been a long time since I posted a review! I have been so busy with life that I haven't been reading much in the last 2 months but I am finally picking my books up again!

This time, I choose a book that I know I will devoured in a short time and I did! A Knight in Shining Armor is an all time classic historical romance book that my friends had been recommending and I just didn't managed to pick it up. Few months ago, I made used of a Kobo discount and finally bought the book for myself.

A Knight in Shining Armor tells the story of a woman, Dougless Montgomery, in modern England (1980s) who was ditched by her boyfriend (who happens to be a jerk!) in a church in Ashburton. Just when she was crying her heart out over the grave of Sir Nicholas Stafford, the Earl appeared out of nowhere before her. She had wished for a Knight in Shining Armor and indeed her wish came true. However, things were not as simple as it sounded. The Earl had came from 1564, Elizabethan England, to the modern world to find out what could prove his innocence. He was trailed for treason which he did not committed and he was to be executed in 3 days time when he fell dead on his desk while writing a letter to his mother for help. The couple travelled to places where history recorded nothing about Nicholas except for his womanising traits.

Of course, the two of them will fell in love (this is a romance novel...) and just when we thought Nicholas decided not to return to 1564, he did. And the next thing we know, Dougless travelled back to 1560! Now, this is what I loved about this book. Most of the time travel books that I have read only tell how one character travel to one time. However in this book, both our main characters time travelled.

The exquisite details of the Elizabethan people's clothing, food and lifestyle were well written and researched. I thoroughly enjoyed reading them.

This books tells about the wonderful romance that crossed between times. I loved how the book was split into two parts where we get a modern tale weaved together with a historical tale. I loved how the author gave us a happy ending despite me crying my heart out when I thought it was going to be a sad one. I am pleased to see characters coming together in different periods and how one could changed easily just because history has changed. Although at times, I find some of the stuffs almost impossible to believe, I just had to remind myself that this is a fiction book and reading it is for my pleasure and not straining my brain to spot out the unrealistic portion.

This is going to be a book that I would want to read again and again and I highly recommend it for people who enjoyed Historical Romance and Time Traveling books.